Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Emancipation
I’ve about had it with bras.
This morning, I reached for a long-sleeved t-shirt and a turtleneck (we’re up north, don’t you know, so I have to layer) and looked around for my bra which I had left downstairs.
Lest you think otherwise, I don’t just randomly take off my bra and leave it lying around on the kitchen counter. My bra has to irk me for some time – several hours usually – and then I slink off somewhere and rid myself of it. There’s a lot of machinations involved especially if you’re layered up. It’s not like kicking off your shoes. It’s a project.
So this morning, I thought to myself, why am I putting on a bra? Now, I’m a girl of the sixties and going braless was a thing then. Women saw it as making a statement which I agreed with but, in my particular case, given what I was given, it was too much of a statement. So I stayed bra’d up all through the sixties to now. Even properly constrained and contained, I had more conversations than I can count with men talking to my chest.
But now, I’m like, who cares? I should strap on what is essentially a cinch with wires (and stop right now because somebody is going to feel compelled to tell me there are wireless bras like I’m Granny Clampett still wearing a Playtex cone bra) and wait until five o’clock to take it off after it’s sucked the damn life out of me?
What is the purpose of that? Decorum? Prevention of sagging? Men have loose body parts, too, but they don’t seem to worry about keeping them bundled up so they don’t sag, hence the term, “how’s it hangin’?” And even if *they* do sag now, what would be the implications of that for my life?
I’m thinking now of my grandmother. There was her head, her neck, and then her enormous ‘bosom’ as she called it ending at the top of her apron and her bosom was always encased in an enormous brassiere, so large it could be used to collect apples from the orchard. She didn’t take it off until the day she died. But I bet she wanted to.
11 Comments on “Emancipation”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I have just about come to the same decision for winter-layering days of not much activity, but am compromising with a secret support camisole. They have an elasticised ‘shelf’ which keeps things a bit more stable, and warm
So funny and true!
Since the heart surgery, I can’t wear a bra. I don’t know if one could call this fortunate, but I previously had two-sided breast cancer and when I had them rebuilt I said SMALL. VERY SMALL. I think the surgeon thought I was nuts, but it turned out after the heart surgery I couldn’t wear a bra anyway, I don’t even own a bra. I love it.
No substitute for comfort – thanks for a post that raised an early morning smile. BTW: how’re they hanging? just asking!
When I am north in the cooler months and wearing two or more layers, I frequently don’t wear a bra. I have always considered them instruments of torture. I’m too big to wear a sports bra so I choose comfort over being correct.
Yes, a thousand times YES!!!
Thanks for the laugh. I so resonate with everything you write.
The best news is that someone laughed. Thanks!
My pleasure!
Here’s to freedom!
Yes!!